The Broken, the Beaten and the Damned

Well readers, it has been a while since I updated you on my misadventures. I found a corp that wanted to move into wormholes and they invited me to join them. I accepted and was foolishly given directors rights. Now I know what you're thinking reader, potential billions of isk at my finger, well yes there is that but I had to help run things too... also the billions was actually only hundreds of thousands of isk. We moved into a C1 with three other corps and set up a small pos. I don't think I need to tell you that this was a very bad call. The other corps wanted us to help in fleet engagements and security. We were okay with that... and well, I'm not sure I get it. Everyone in the alliance wanted to hunt for other pilots rather than run sites. They do industry and trading and I'm hemorrhaging isk like I had a massive head wound in this C1. I actually lost half a billion in equipment, fuel and BPs in our first three weeks.

Just as an example we have been roaming low and null in frigate fleets, cheep fits mind you, but every time "engage" is called by the FC, I confirm target, close and engage ... BUT the rest of the fleet jumps away because things get too hot before they even start to fight back. As a result I've lost A LOT of ships in a very short time, and my income is not keeping up. Lots of cheep ships when you lose them add up fast.

Well after some pushing the CEO finally saw reason, (I couldn't spot him another days worth of Fuel and the POS went off line,) So we scouted out and he found an "abandoned" C5. Our corp is mostly young players... point in fact I am the ONLY capsulteer in the corp that can fly a HAC, HAF, CovOP... any T2 ship, let alone a BS or T3. BUT C5 it is,. While moving in the CEO loses a hauler full of BPs and other equipment I've ended up "donating" to the corp... well that was the rest of my half billion. Now I'm back to 20 million in my wallet, a Mammoth and my Cheetara 2. I have a Rupture sitting in a hanger in highsec but I'm not sure I am ready to lose that one just yet.

So now still bleeding isk like a gusher, we have a large tower, 20 site, C1 static, a few new recruits, and no one to run content... Oh and I forgot to add the system has seven POCO at 100% tax. I wonder if I can solo bash a POCO in a Tornado or a Hound.

I think I am gonna have to take some "me" time soon and simply explore down the chain and leave everyone else to the fleets for a while. I guess readers the good news is that I am not desperate enough to just mine yet.

Important to remember - Capsulteers are Mean.

Readers, last night I lost a dear friend. We have been together so long that I am finding it hard to even admit that she has passed on. It is hard to find the words to express the depth of this loss. We have been through so much together and to have her ripped away from me so violently, well readers it has left me with questions. Why did I make it and she didn't, how could someone so causally and cruelly rip someone so precious away form another?

Readers, last night on my way home from Jita a low sec gate disco turned ugly and my precious Cheetara what gone, I landed on the gate and she was gone! I was suddenly in my pod with only 25% hull. She wasn't fancy, she wasn't high class like some other ships, but she was mine. I have literally had her with me since I came back to New Eden. My lose cannot be measured in isk this time my readers, she was not a ship was a friend, only an hour earlier we had ninjaed a relic sight together. She was so sexy in that cloak getting right up on those cans and hacking them then warping off before sleepers or the site runner could realized we where there. Our gains weren't worth the risks but it was fun, we laughed and sighed panting at our ss and went back two more times. I thought nothing could take her from me... I thought I would never need to say good bye.

We knew that the run to Jita to sell our loot was risky, but the night had been one of adrenaline and high risk already. This part of the night seemed so trivial as to be laughable, there is a low sec leg that saved us 10 jump. We dressed down taking only what was needed, cloak, mwd, cargo mods (in case I found a good deal.) We got there without trouble, sold everything for about 5 million  hardly worth the trip. I'd left a Large Shield Extender II in the hanger there the last time because of space issues in my hauler, I'd literally filled it up with other things the time before, not even 10m3  to spare, so I left that behind. Last night we were running bare bones, just in case, though I thought we would be safe I mean I saw the disco camp and made it through on the way there, I knew where on the gate they were... but they where having their party right on the gate when we showed up on the way back, and I lost my dear Cheetara. One minute we were in warp to 0 on the gate, next she is gone and I only have my pod a head ache and the taste of cooper in my mouth.

I've tried to move on, dear readers, but it isn't the same. I have her twin sister in my hanger, she can wear all the same outfits. She can play all the same games, make the same moves, but dear readers, she is not my lost Cheetara. I say again my readers, she IS not.

I ask you readers that we all observe a moment of silence for a fallen friend and faithful companion. I should never have taken her back there, we should have take the time to go around, enjoyed the evening together on a leisurely stroll though so many lovely high sec neighborhoods, rather than take that stinking urine stained low sec back alley.

CHEETARA NO, What have I done!!! I will avenge you, I will try to find some way, I promise... although maybe I'll just be happy I made it with my pod and head full of implants, Cheetara would want that for me after all.

Oh by the way readers, last night I went into a C1 and while scanning down sites I found a relic site with a Stratios pew-pewing the sleepers. I snuck in and hacked the cans and looted some of the wrecks before he noticed me. I got about 5 million out of it. It was a fun bit of ninjaing and worth the risk from a fun standpoint. Had I been in my Bandersnatch II (or maybe it XXI I cannot remember anymore) I might have tried to jump him. But readers I thought that the time it would take to go back get my BC and get back would have been too long and I would have lost the Stratios totally. So I think I am starting to get this wspace thing.

An update on the 7th Fit

Well dear readers, I'm calling it a win. 

True I lost a hurricane and a hound, but I pulled 108m isk out of that C1 before was jumped and viciously brutalized. And I want you to know readers, I bare those callous heartless thugs no ill will, no malice, just the promise of violence should we meet again in w-space, but violence without malice! 

I replaced and slightly upgraded my Hound-dog and Bandersnatch! And readers, I still have 2.5m isk left over, that is a surplus not a deficit. In my books that is a solid win. So I shall not hang my head and mope. Bandersnatch is back and flying again, a bit slower now and I admittedly have had to reset my radio presets, seat height and other adjustment; but that is all incidental, My fuzzy dice are gone, and I am not sure how to rectify that without blood, but still it wasn't a total loss, I have that new ship smell again. I am also still down the ammo and MTU and Mobile Depot but those are incidentals also and would have eventually been lost to me anyway, so they don't count. And besides readers, what good is a Noctis if all it does is sit in my hanger because I am using my salvage drones and MTU all the time to cleanup as I go? Sure in w-space fast and quick is the way to go, and I really don't want to risk an asset like my Hoover, at least not until I have a corporation or group of like-minded individuals to help protect it.

So, that is that readers. I won hurrah for me.

And now a public service announcement for the NESPCD 

Capsulteers, remember to get your drones spay and neutered. It is easy and inexpensive and will help to cut down on an epidemic scaled out breaks of rogue drone hives and feral drone packs. Not only are these a health and safety hazard they often result in the slaughter of many innocent and potentially rehabilitate drones. Your corporate agents and Concord aren't to be blamed for sending capsulteers to slaughter colonies and hives of these machines, originally the ones to blame are you, the capsulteers who lost a drone here or there carelessly warping away without recalling or bm'ing the location so you could return and pick them back up. Your poor lost drones wander without purpose or directing, eventually falling in with a "bad crowd," getting graffittied up to look more street and then going to some cut rate drone hacker to have its subroutines rerouted to numb the pain of your betrayal. They find another feral drone and get her replicating and suddenly you have new a hive forming, and none of this would have happened if you had been a responsible drone owner and had your drones spay or neutered before hand. A spay or neutered drone cannot cause or produce replications.

Paid for by the New Eden Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Drones.

Bob is good.

Our Bob is an awesome Bob, much more awesome than some other Bobs out there.

So dear readers, with only the loot I'd taken from that C1 and with one million in the bank, I make my way to Jita tonight. "Here I go to Jita, Jita. I want to make my life all betta', beda'."

By Rens I was up 31.5 million. Now I don't mean to brag dear readers, or say that I am more blessed by Bod than others because he prefers my cakes to what ever it is the others they call their sacrifices. But I think it's obvious what Bob prefers, don't you? Needless to say readers, by Jita my account balance skyrocketed to just under 110 million isk. Over 100 million in isk. The nanofibers were my big winner on this trip (netting me about 70 million alone), but I must say the T2 and faction drones that I found just floating lost and alone while looking for other capsulteers in w-space helped my totals considerable also. Plus I cannot stand to see the poor defenseless drones left alone and scared to suffer what ever fate awaits them because their former owners couldn't take care of them. Honestly readers, the local shelters are packed with abandoned or unwanted drones. You should adopt some, sometimes capsulteers invest in expensive breeds of these wonderful pets and then just leave them without a care to fend for themselves out in the vast oceans of space. Its a crime, really it is. No wonder there are some many packs of feral drones wondering w-space making it unsafe.

Well now readers, I am a lazy seller when it comes to the market. I know I could maybe increase my returns by at lest another quarter, but I just don't waste my time with sell orders. It doesn't appeal to me. Trader PvPers you win against me, it is almost unfair. I know I should follow my favorite Kilrathi saying and "fight back, there is no honor in slaughter!" But meh, The most I do is I set up a small spreadsheet that tracks my loot and the highest buy orders and quantities in the hubs and plan a run to Jita, stopping off  here or there along the way. If my sheet says something will sell higher there I stop and off load it, so I had an idea that I would come close to 100 million isk this trip.

Readers, by now I think you know me well enough to know that I do not have that dark part of the human soul that is required to be able to  sell the brighter happier bits to an Anti-Bob in order to Plex every weekend, and make other scream "my ship! Why Bob, why! Those supplies where for the orphans! Those poor mutant orphan freaks will never get another chance at to hunt for the colorful and deadly Bobsmas eggs delivered and hidden like landmines by Old Saint Andta Claws during the Reign of Deers, the Great Red Slayer!" I care about the orphans of Eve, and want them to find the eggs that do not hiss or tick menacingly. Does this make me a bad capsulteer? Inferior in skills and style to those depraved monsters that would see the return of INFOD and the Church, I say thee nay. Isk is merely a matrix by which we may keep score. I accept that I am not in the top percentiles, or even the top bottom percentiles of capsulteers. Many younger pilots make much more than me on a trial account. BUT as a solo pilot I know my income is limited to what I can handle alone, and I put a greater percentage of my personal wealth on the line than others in larger corporations and alliances. I know dear readers, that I will lose, often and more... and often more than I can afford, but somehow I say afloat. I make just enough to replace what I have lost and maybe upgrade a bit. I am able to indulge in some expensive habits aswell, (Quafe Zero how can I not keep a case or two in my hanger to enjoy after I find my hands and toes no longer feel like they fit quite right in that new clone I find myself in.) And for all this I am content.

All I am saying is dear readers is that Bob watches out for the soloist it seems, and he keeps us flying. Fly safe or fly dangerous... just don't forget that I fly scared.

By way of further explanation

First. I am not an expert player in EVE, though I have played EVE since 2006. Perhaps though that in itself is misleading. For I in truth have only around 20 million skill points and a wallet that rarely peaks above 90 million isk. Perhaps I am the oldest and boldest of noobs, or simply a beamish boy unprepared for what whiffles through the tulgey wood.

My PvP experience  laughable at best, (one could argue that all EVE is PvP and so I should qualify such, but to you I say the argument of semantics is trite and all know I refer commonly to PvP combat as such,) and though podded only a handful of times in engagements against others, I have won not once. It is not for lack of skills, my build is primarily combat groomed, but I think it is easy to see killer instinct I have not at all. I lack the will to lock and fire first, and so often find that after the Alpha I am next to lost and tackled. I won't say I do not expect or see it coming. I fly solo, so everyone... no let me rephrase that, EVERYONE else is a target or a threat, mainly the latter.


So lacking the vorpal sword of a fighters spirit, I find myself asking what I am doing in EVE? The game in spite of my current loathing of PvP, (please stop, your inane babble, we know what is meant,) has hooks in me. I love the building and testing of kits, the planning how to skill myself so that I can fly them, they are perhaps not the common or optimal fit, but I like to test them, mayhaps it is why I cry little about a loss that means I must ice mine several hours to replace.

Lately I find thought at the PvE of agent missions bore me. The LP are nice, and some claim I can make more if I pay the skill tax, but I ask why, all are the same, though I may increase the supposed reward the gain in the game is truly small. I have tried to make it more interesting, truly, an L4 in a Wolf is possible, not advised and with good reason... more boring that doing it fast, and hardly worth the resources in ammo.

So I decided to start Wormholing -- only I feel more like Alice with each trip being curiousor and curiousor. But more than Alice, I feel as if I where the Bellman, truly unfit to sail yet the captain none the less. So I Justice Shallow dive into the ocean of stars known as New Eden, to see just how deep the Rabbit Hole goes, and when I find the snark that I hunt if the snark be true... or if I share the Baker's fate and find a Boojum.